


the trouble with being a living legend

by serenfire



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-17
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-09 06:36:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1972596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenfire/pseuds/serenfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“This is Skye,” Coulson introduced to the assembled crew. “She’ll replace Barton as the boiler worker, as he has unfortunately left our ranks for the circus.”</p><p>“Hopefully she won’t melt down the engine in the middle of the next thunderstorm,” Simmons commented brightly.</p><p> </p><p>or, the steampunk pirate!au</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. rum

**Author's Note:**

> @anyone I know irl: do not read thanks

“This is Skye,” Coulson introduced to the assembled crew. “She’ll replace Barton as the boiler worker, as he has unfortunately left our ranks for the circus.” 

“Hopefully she won’t melt down the engine in the middle of the next thunderstorm,” Simmons commented brightly. 

Ward, from his position as the stand-in pilot, slouched against the wheel. “Isn’t she a mainlander? From the _land we just raided_?” 

Skye folded her arms at the accusation, looking offended. 

May hopped aboard, cutting the ropes securing the ship to the pier, the last member of their gangly little crew and the rightful pilot. She hefted a large bronze flamethrower over her shoulder, and Ward went to join the small assembly as she took her place at the wheel and prepared to cast off. 

“Skye’s not from the mainland,” Coulson growled in Ward’s ear, trying to maintain some semblance of authority. “You might not recognize her name, but maybe her title? This is the Rising Tide.” 

Ward looked Skye up and down, and she, definitely within earshot, looked smug. She would have the aura of an ordinary woman once she cleaned up (probably her intention, considering her usual line of business, streetside and in broad daylight), but as it was Skye looked underwhelming, like a ragged beggar, like someone who needed to seek sanctuary and didn’t have networks across Europe to hide her faster than any secret service could catch her scent. Half her hair was buzzed and the other fell to her shoulder in clumps, as if she had been interrupted in the middle of changing her identity, and her wrinkled uniform with the three-gear insignia and the huge scarlet leather jacket that cocooned her shoulders shaped her like a third-rate gypsy. Her only visible weapon was a pistol sticking out of her belt, within clear grabbing reach, and Ward scoffed. 

“ _Right_.” He patted Coulson on the shoulder. “Of _course_ she’s the Rising Tide. If any of you need me, I’ll be cataloguing the plunder and hoping that our new boilie doesn’t blow the Bus apart.” 

From behind him, Skye stage-muttered, “ _Rude_.” 

*** 

Two hours later, Ward was stuck on a Celtic knot of clunking gold necklaces, untying it in the dim candlelight and aching joints of his room. A knock echoed on the door. 

“Fitz, I _swear_ if that’s you, I will shoot you. I will not have tea to celebrate, you _Brit_.” 

The cabin door swung open, illuminating an unimpressed Skye with a bottle of rum carelessly hanging from her fingers. 

“What are _you_ doing here?” he snapped. 

“Thought we could share.” She pranced in, pulling a workbench from the corner and dragging it to Ward’s desk. “Here.” 

Ward took the offered rum and gulped down a swig. Immediately he coughed and shoved it back at her. “What is _in_ that?” he growled. 

“Um. Vodka, and a splash of rum.” Skye took another swig, waggling her eyebrows at Ward. “It’s a special occasion, is it not? I’m celebrating changing scenery, here. Help me out.” 

“Where did you get the vodka? We don’t have any in stock.” 

Skye rolled her eyes. “I nabbed it from the cathedral, who before nabbed it from some unsuspecting household that didn’t keep their wine cabinet hidden deep enough in the attic. I also came to you because I have a few trinkets hidden in here _also_ from the cathedral, which you probably need to add to your inventory.” 

As Ward looked on, in a stupor, Skye stood up and reached in an inner pocket in her red leather jacket, and threw a handful of precious stones on the table. “Nabbed _that_ from the back room. Some clerk miscounted, or —” she grinned lecherously, “y’know, _something_.” 

Ward scooped them up and poured them into a jar with similar precious stones. “Thank you. Why didn’t you just keep them?” 

Skye shrugged, lying down on the workbench. “I’m on this crew, am I not?” She took another drink from the bottle, and bolted up, looking panicked. 

“What —” Ward didn’t get his question out before Skye was at the porthole, unscrewing it and vomiting out the side of the Bus. 

“ _God_ ,” Skye groaned. “Having too much to drink _sucks_. I need to wash it down with something.” 

“Hey, no more of this for you!” Ward protested, taking a sip himself. It wasn’t as bad the second time around. 

Skye just slumped on the workbench again, lying down on top of the necklaces Ward had been sorting. “Got yourself a bit of a pickle here, don’t’cha? You know if you use a fork and pull in opposite directions, something’s bound to come unloose at some point.” 

“Are you really the Rising Tide?” Ward blurted out. “Because all the stories — one, you’re not tall enough to do some of the things I’ve been told.” 

“And what _exactly_ , Mr. Ward, have you been told?” Skye reached out and dragged a hand down Ward’s face. He had no idea what she had _meant_ to do, but her coordination was almost gone by this point. 

“You were a file manager, in the beginning, for an airship builder. Then you found misplaced files for a newly-minted cannon and decided to sell them to the monopolizing corporation, and build a better one at home to reveal on opening day, against theirs. You got infamous for that, so it has to be true. But then afterwards, no one really knows. Did you really kidnap the prime minister and rifle through his sock drawer to find the keys to his personal airship, and steal it just to parachute from it and leave it in flames? Because I know people who know people who were _there_ , but no eyewitnesses.” 

Skye waved a hand dismissively. “His umbrella stand, but yeah. It was fun. But I was on vacation. I usually steal files from offices; drawers under lock and key are _nothing_ compared to my gadgets.” 

“So your gadgets get you everything you need. Nothing to do with you.” Ward realized he had finished the bottle of vodka. Shame. 

“I’m a pretty face in a pink dress, bypassing security and planting my colleagues in places of power _everywhere_. But no, I make the gadgets. I’m the brains. And the face, I guess. I’m the face of the Rising Tide.” She giggled, thoroughly wasted. “That’s me!” 

Ward subconsciously reached up to brush his hand over the side of her head that still had hair. “What style were you going for with this?” 

“ _This_? I was bored waiting out the Portuguese military at _church_ of all places. I was going to dress up as a clerk and escape out the front door. You lot killed the military first, so, _thanks_.” 

“I didn’t do it,” Ward grouched. “Coulson had me on recon the entire time. I was herding the livestock to Simmons so she could preserve it. I had nothing to do with your rescue.” 

He had no idea why he was telling Skye all of this. (Was her rum a truth serum? He’d have to go by Simmons to check, later.) 

“Oh, honey,” Skye drawled, petting his cheek again (and seriously, what was with that?), “of course you didn’t. I’m congratulating myself, here. Not you. This is my day, where I spin the valves and manage the motor and talk to your engine and get a free ride to Tanzania.” 

“Tanzania? What’s so important in Africa?” 

“I’ve only been twice. I haven’t spread my wings out there yet, haven’t established friends and a network of friends of their friends. I’m done with Europe, as I’m sure you know by me, y’know, hiring myself out to _get_ there.” 

“Tanzania?” Ward muttered to himself. “We’re going to Africa?” 

Skye threw back her head and laughed at his drunken confusion, as though she wasn’t similarly plagued. “Ward, Ward, _Ward_ — seriously, do you have a first name? Everyone just kind of calls you Ward — your boss Coulson is my number one fan. He’ll take me anywhere I need to go.” 

“And right now, you need to take a shower. Or back up, because I washed this morning, and you’re getting dirt all over my shirt.” 

“You’re frightfully honest for a pirate,” Skye grinned, and he hadn’t noticed that she was all up in his personal space now, but _oh_. He was a bit too drunk to handle this. 

“I’m still convinced you’re lying about everything,” Ward admitted. 

“Well, I _might_ be.” 

Ward reached out to grab Skye’s hand, which was sneaking around on his table, and lifted it up. A heavy gold necklace dangled from it. “Are you trying to steal my plunder from under my nose?” 

“Oi! I was untangling it for you, so a _you’re welcome_ might be in order. Didn’t even need a fork.” 

A knock sounded on the door, and Skye started out of Ward’s personal space. Ward didn’t pout _at all_ because of this. 

Fitz peeked in the room. “Are you in here? You didn’t shout at me, so — oh. Are you Skye?” 

“Is that _real tea_?” Skye boggled, and snatched the cups out of Fitz’s hands. “I haven’t had tea in _years_ , not since I went underground!” She took a deep gulp of one and slid the other cup to Ward. “This is _amazing_ , Fitz. It _is_ Fitz, isn’t it?” 

“Um, yeah,” Fitz frowned. “But you just took my tea.” 

Skye waved at him. “You have more, don’t you? Make more, if you want. This is _heavenly_. Here. I have to enjoy this with both hands.” She passed Fitz the heavy gold necklace, and Fitz looked at Ward in confusion, who was doing nothing about the situation. 

“Ward? Are you _drunk_?” 

“Completely,” Skye assured him. “It’s my family’s recipe, too. Secret ingredients, and all.” 

“He rarely ever gets drunk,” Fitz smiled. “This is quite something.” 

“He’s rather stunning to watch flail around,” Skye admitted. As if waiting for her cue, steam hissed up through the floorboards. She gasped and whirled around, shoving her teacup in Fitz’s hand. “That’s the engine deciding it didn’t like the duct tape I put over its many holes. I have to get going, before we all go up in flames.” 

“Okay,” Fitz said, draining the rest of the tea in one gulp as Skye fled. He turned to Ward. “What just happened?” 

“Give me back my necklace,” Ward grouched. “ _I am not drunk_.” 


	2. telepathy

Skye brought out a megaphone in the middle of breakfast to announce excitedly at the five-piece crew. “I patched up the engine!” 

“Good,” Simmons smiled widely at Fitz. “Clint made a horrible mess of things.” Then, to Skye, “Was it the duct tape that did the final trick?” 

_You imbeciles know nothing of engines,_ Skye sighed. “I don’t like my work being compared to a crew member I didn’t meet and was abysmal at his job,” she voiced into the megaphone. “Don’t look at me like that! I may have only been here a week, but I’ve heard enough stories of That Day. The day when the clouds crumbled and Valhalla spat its fury upon you! The day Clint Barton _sewed_ the boiler back together like a doily, as all his supplies had been loaded into the cannons to shoot at the possessed birds attacking the ship, along with all the silverware! The day Fitz lost all his hair! _The last day this ship flied!_ ” 

“Will you stop using that horrendous machine? I hear feedback,” the previously bald engineer grumbled. He didn’t feel like Skye could just _attack_ his hair like that, as hers was shorn and stubbly. 

“And you all expect me to fix his mistakes with a roll of duct tape! I work with mechanisms, people, not forces of will.” She took a breath, and started to wind up the megaphone’s power. “The _point I’m trying to make is_ ,” Skye screamed to the five of them at a folding table, overcompensating for the loss of vocal help, “I made contact with the Engine.” 

“You what.” Ward, too tired for her wisecracks this early in the day, was derailed from his current train of thought moaning about there being no hot water for coffee in the middle of the ocean. 

“I made _telepathic connection with the Engine_ — oh, screw you,” Skye flipped off the megaphone, which had caught on itself while winding up and then systematically fell to pieces, leaving only the internal spring left in Skye’s hand. She tossed the spring the nearest direction overboard, and it fell several yards short. 

“She’s insane,” Ward muttered to Coulson, who was watching in rapt attention to Skye’s hip-swinging gesticulations. 

Coulson shushed him. “Do you know what she’s _done_?” he asked excitedly. “She’s _bridged the gap of organic life forms and the core of our ship with_ — tape?” 

“Voltage wires and Tesla coils,” Skye sat down at the table and drained Fitz’s rum. “Ze’s in my mind now,” she waggled her fingers. 

“Does ze have a name?” May asked, inflectionless and face blank, giving no impression that she thought Skye’s revelation was mentally unstable. 

Skye knew for a _fact_ the pilot slept with her favorite flamethrower under her pillow, and was thoroughly frightened of the levelheaded pirate. “Yeah. _Engine_ ,” she nodded. “Doesn’t have a great imagination, really. Navigational programs take up too much space in hir noggin. However, when ze was a scrap in a shipyard, ze did bond with an engine who called hirself Phoenix, so uh. Ze was thinking about maybe taking the title.” 

“Does anyone know what this _means_?” Simmons squealed. “Technology has advanced further than ever before — Skye, I think you made a revolutionary scientific discovery. I — I’ll have to take blood samples, and DNA tests, and maybe.” She cut off, a devious gleam in her eye. “Maybe you could hook me up to the Engine, too?” 

“ _No_ , Jemma, you’re not psychically linking yourself to a piece of machinery I’ve studied all my life!” Fitz cried out. “Skye, I’m slightly afraid of telling you, but there’s _no way_ you can communicate telepathically with the Engine. It’s a hunk of gears and bolts and brass covering.” 

Skye studied him, undeterred in the least. “You were the replacement boilie, weren’t you, after Barton left?” 

Fitz nodded. 

“The Engine kind of hated you. Ze hated you _so much_ ze didn’t glow for you. Ze glows a nice, pale red, did you know?” 

Fitz blinked. 

“Ze’s fine with showing you _now_ , of course, because I’m the boilie and I’m not going to harm hir in any way, especially _kicking hir to trigger a restart_.” 

And _then_ , in some magic mind-coercing moment Ward didn’t catch as he was still thinking about coffee and the wonders of an alternate post-military thug life on the mainland with power attachments and _water heaters_ , Skye convinced both Fitz and Simmons to follow her down to the boiler room to greet the Engine properly. 

Ward must have been staring in the space Skye last left too obviously, because May judged him and gave him an undermining smirk as she pulled out the map of the world. 

“The fastest way to Tanzania is around the Cape,” Coulson said, ghosting a finger over it. 

“The question is, why doesn’t Skye just get off at Good Hope? Jo’berg is populated enough to hide gracefully and integrate yourself back into the system,” Ward wondered. “Since she has no friends on the continent.” 

Coulson considered this. “But the Valley _is_ home to tech geniuses and ship factories and closer to the Silk Road, and doesn’t require ID to enter or exit.” 

“The Rising Tide would be good enough to forge her own,” Ward frowned. “It shouldn’t be a problem unless _she’s not who she says she is_.” 

“Ward,” May sighed, “keep your conspiracy theories to yourself.” 

“The only conspiracy theory at play here is that you all believe without a doubt that she’s the _Rising Tide_ , not a groupie that hid in a church.” _She dresses like a groupie, at any rate._

“She took us into consideration, Ward. If she forges ID’s for all of us, which we will need to show the _moment we dock_ , they will reek of the same origin no matter how good she is. You of all of us know the tightness of South African security. One ID? Might slip through. Six isn’t likely.” 

“The point still stands. How do you know she’s not leading FitzSimmons to their deaths right now?” 

Coulson and May shared glances. “When we raided the cathedral,” May said, “the coffers looked empty. A triple check revealed an elaborate mirror trick that fooled _us_ into thinking the room was empty, and Skye was almost out the door by then.” 

Ward grimaced, remembering the drunk conversation in his office; the way she talked about using a clerk to ‘misplace’ valuable items. 

“So? All it means is that she’s _good_. Thieves have pretended to be Robin Hood before, it’s much the same as that.” 

“Must I remind you she _created a megaphone_ out of scraps found lying around on the ship?” May snapped. “For the _express purpose_ of telling us the Engine is sentient. She’s not good; she’s the _best_.” 

Simmons and Fitz clambered up from below deck, Simmons looking like an angel had personally escorted her up and Fitz looking nauseous. 

“It’s all true,” Simmons gushed. “Phoenix was talking to me _in my mind_. Ze’s alive, and _coherent_ , and guiding us in the right direction wherever we go! I need to contact a scientific journal immediately.” 

“We don’t get cell reception out here,” Skye called to her as Simmons rushed to her room. The Rising Tide turned back to the others, and winked at Ward. 

“And Fitz?” Coulson asked as Ward stared at Skye in confusion. “What about you?” 

“I talked to hir,” Fitz grumbled. 

“ _And_?” 

Fitz buried his head in his hands and Skye burst into laughter. “Ze gave me _relational advice_. A bloody talking engine gave me pointers on pining.” He glared at Ward, who felt twice as baffled as before. 

“The Engine had a crush on Barton,” Skye giggled. “That’s _really cute_ , you all have to admit.” 

May herded them in, like the shepherd she was born to be. “So. Tanzania. The fastest we can make it is a month. Sorry we’re not a _flying_ airship, and if you don’t want to dock at Good Hope…” 

“I hear this ship cut off its own wings,” Skye said cheekily, her form of shrugging and assuring them it wasn’t a problem. (It frustrated Ward more how he knew what her quirks meant after a week on board.) “I had to get off Iberia as soon as possible and you are very hospitable.” She ended her smile at Ward, who thought, _All I did was drink her vodka once. How does this apply to hospitality?_

“Do you have any friends in Tanzania?” Coulson enquired, switching the atmosphere from silent flirting to back-on-track with no subtlety. 

Skye grimaced. “No, but an old enemy who will take me in. Former Russian Secret Service.” 

They all freeze reflexively at the mention of a government agency, and Skye hastened to add, “They’re currently trying to kill her for revealing their secrets to the British.” 

“So she’s ex-secret service,” Ward confirmed. 

“Yes.” Skye smiled. “Just like you! You wouldn’t get along, though. Her poker face is much better than your poker face, and your inability to interact with people without substances of some sort might grind on her nerves much the same way you do ours.” 

“I’m feeling so much better about this already,” Ward grinned back, with all his teeth. 

“That’s frightening,” Skye deadpanned, then turned to May. “I hope you don’t need to restock on the Cape, because the dude that monopolized border security there wants me dead.” 

Coulson stepped on Ward’s foot, a _see; what did I tell you?_ to put his scheming mind at rest. 

“Don’t worry,” May said smoothly. “We’ll be fine taking you to the Great Rift Valley. We could even stop by Persia to sell our plunder on the Silk Road.” 

“Wonderful,” Skye grinned. “I’ll, um, go see what Simmons is writing to the nearest scientific journal. Ahoy, mateys!” 

Ward stared after her skipping retreat. “Did she just say _ahoy, mateys_?” 

“Well,” Coulson frowned. “We _are_ pirates.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The geography I'm using is a mix between modern day and 19th century, as there wasn't Tanzania or SA a few hundred years ago.  
> The only time I've been through the Jo'berg airport my friend lost her iPod and security didn't help us so it remained lost. I kind of wanted to conjure up that animosity towards the port in the story, though for the opposite reasons. No disrespect intended, just artistic liscence.


	3. brass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Barton left the crew to join the circus: the condensed version.

It started with a high-stakes game of Go Fish. The six members of the crew were sitting in a full circle, Barton’s supporters on his side and Simmons’s on hers. The squawking exotic bird the high-stakes game was centered around watched, bored, as the crew of the bus tried to cheer the two participants on. 

Fitz let out a bloodcurdling cry. “Simmons will _end_ you!” he pointed at Barton. “Simmons will _end you, and you will have to pick the bloody bird up_! She will end you for science! She will end you and you will _not forget it_! Hey, look at that. A pair of three’s.” 

Simmons laid a pair of three’s down on her side of the table, which had many more pairs than Barton’s. They were playing with two decks of cards shuffled together, and even so, he had only managed to get three pairs of sixes, which wasn’t a good omen. He had a run of eleven in his hand, though, so _any time now_ — 

Barton drew one of the two cards he didn’t have, a Queen, and threw his cards onto the table as Simmons drew and laid down her last two cards, smirking as she did so. 

“She totally ended you,” Fitz crowed. “Now you have to pick up the bird!” 

“I know I do,” Barton growled. Ward, the only person rooting for him, reached around and tugged on Fitz’s shoulder-length hair. 

“Watch the merchandise,” Fitz growled, pruning his long locks. 

Simmons crossed her arms and motioned with her chin to the dusty blue bird the length of Barton’s arm. “Pick it up and put him in a basket. Also, feed him the lamb we had leftovers from London last night.” 

“We’re not feeding the lamb to a bird,” Ward shook his head. “It’s the _most expensive thing_ we ordered.” 

Simmons shrugged. “I don’t want him deposited to my lab in animalistic conditions. He’s a new species and needs to be treated as such.” 

“He dropped from the clouds, Simmons,” Coulson sighed, standing up and stretching. The morning’s activities were fun, but he had to plot a course to the Maldives that didn’t violate Arabia’s trigger-happy airspace. “He’s just lost.” 

“Like we will be if you don’t plan a route for us,” May told him, giving him a serious glare, and they ambled off near the Wheel to actually _work_. 

Simmons and Fitz bustled off to their labs below deck, and Barton and Ward looked at each other. “I’m not doing this,” Ward said. “I’m just here to make sure it doesn’t peck your face off.” 

“That’s so helpful, thanks.” Barton was only half paying attention to the specialist, rolling up his sleeves and hunching down to get close to the bird. Noticing the humans staring intently at him, the blue bird backed up and scowled at the archer-slash-boiler room worker. 

“And _gotcha_ ,” Barton said, lunging for it and enveloping the bird in a tackle. The bird squawked and tried to flap out of it, but Barton growled, “ _A cage! Ward —_ get a cage!” and they managed to shove it in a wicker basket that smelled distinctly of prawn. 

The bird, thoroughly scared of humanity and slightly offended they put him in a cage that had held _shrimp_ , pooped. If it were a usual poop, Barton and Ward would scowl and carefully walk around the mess, However, this poop kind of — 

“Did that bird just poo a hole through the deck?” Barton blinked. 

“This is your fault,” Ward shook his head. “This is all — I had nothing to do with it — _that hole is through the interior of the Engine_.” They stopped, and stared at the small smoking hole made from the exotic bird’s acid poop, and down a level where brass was dripping into the machine powering flight. 

“That’s not good,” Barton glared at the bird, which made a cawing noise and ruffled its feathers indignantly. “I blame _you_ ,” he told it. “Ward, take this infernal bird and get to Simmons. I’ll patch up the damage done.” 

Ward took the wicker basket with infernal acid poop bird gingerly, like it was a mission for Queen and Country that required the most delicate touch or else the bomb would _explode_. (Things this ridiculous didn’t happen in his old career.) 

Barton dashed off to the boiler room, and was greeted with a horrible sight. The Engine, beauty that she was, was pulsing red like a heart attack. “Oh, baby,” he murmured, stroking her plating as the gears clicked and rearranged themselves and whined to make up for the acid wound through the side like a gaping bullet hole. “Are you — you’re leaking gasoline. Okay.” He pressed his palm against the hole as the golden liquid strained against it. “I will fix this, don’t you worry.” 

_Think, Barton._ He looked around wildly. A half-eaten sandwich, a deck of cards scattered onto the floor, his bow and quiver. 

The Engine rumbled again, and gasoline spurted out the other side of the wound. 

“Okay, this looks bad.” 

Ward ran in, holding a toolkit and a blow torch. “It’s May’s,” he explained. “But we need to meld this back together.” 

“Fitz is the engineer.” 

“Fitz is having a meltdownat the moment,” Ward snorted at his pun. “The bird from hell is picking out his hair while Simmons tries to spray sedative at it.” 

“Spray sedative?” 

“In a spray bottle,” Ward clarified. 

Barton looks at the blow torch. “I can try.” 

Ward hands him a silver plate — “This is a _plate_ from a collection,” Barton glared at the damage of valuable antiques they had looted, but acquiesced — and they started rudimentarily welding it to the hole. The engine groaned, a drawn-out pulsing sound, but it seemed to hold. They welded the second plate to the other side of the hole, and Barton stood, stretching his cramped back. 

“I think it’s as fixed as we can make it without a proper technician aboard,” Ward nodded. 

“Fitz —” 

Ward chuckled. “Fitz doesn’t have anything to build _with_. As he has blabbered into my ear time and time again, engines are fickle things, and every one is unique and poses all the problems for mass repair.” He paused. “Not to mention there’s a bird of terror in his lab.” 

Barton placed his hand on the Engine’s panels. Inside, the regular whirring noise had upgraded to something higher-pitched. “Er, Grant, we may have not fully fixed it —“ 

He cut off as the bus shot up in the sky, both of them falling to their knees. 

“WHAT DID WE DO TO IT?” Barton clawed his way to a standing position, the bus still rocketing upwards. 

“We tweaked the wings!” Ward shouted back at him. “We accidentally screwed up the wings!” 

They shared a glare. “Fitz,” Barton breathed, and they scrambled up the stairwell to Fitz and Simmons’ lab. As they slid open the door, bloody wings flapped in their faces and Ward reflexively tried to stab the bird with his dagger. 

“Don’t hurt it!” Simmons rushed at them, goggles falling off her head and a syringe full of orange liquid in her hands. “We need it alive.” 

“Fitz, we have a problem,” Barton looked around to find the Scot hunched under his desk, hands over his head. “Where did your hair go?” 

Fitz looked up, frowning mournfully. “The bloody bird _pecked it off_! My locks won’t help its indigestion, and it will be acid pooping it out later. _Jemma, it flew out the door_!” 

Simmons was already pushing past Ward to scramble up the staircase after the bird making its great escape. 

“Fitz, we need you to fix the wings,” Barton said in a rush. “We screwed up the engine and we’re ascending so fast we’re going to run out of atmosphere.” 

“Oh. That’s — monumentally worse than my hair,” Fitz admitted. “Okay. Let me see. No promises, because we don’t have the proper materials or backups or anything.” 

They headed out down the stairs, and Fitz rushed into the boiler room, and blanched. “You welded brass onto the holes,” he snarled. “Yeah, _now_ it’s going to combust.” 

“That seems extreme,” Ward noted, in denial. 

Fitz squeezed his eyes shut. “I can’t fix this. We have a few minutes, at most, before we die one way or another. I need to say goodbye to Jemma.” 

Barton and Ward followed him onto the deck, screaming at him to at least _try_ to fix their mess, because they were going to all _die_ if he didn’t. 

Fitz stopped short at the sight of a man in rocket boots landing on the wings of the bus, and swinging himself over the side. Simmons aimed the syringe of orange liquid sedative at him threateningly. The man took off his red-and-yellow striped aviator goggles, waving his hands to signal peace. 

“Don’t shoot! Please, don’t shoot! I can help you with your wing problem,” he grinned, reaching down to press a button on his shoes and the flames died immediately. 

“Who are you?” Ward’s lip curled, stepping forward with knife in hand. 

The man grinned, breathing deeply to catch his breath. “I’m Tony Stark,” he said, “and there are Live Model Decoys of Fury after me, so we’ll have to do this quickly. I need to hide here.” 

“ _Tony Stark_?” Simmons and Fitz gaped. 

“Who’s that?” Ward asked them, utterly out of touch with pop culture. 

“He’s only the richest man —” 

“The smartest man —” 

“The most handsome —” 

“The most suave —” 

“ _Inventor_ in the world! Stark Industries! Owns the almost complete monopoly on airships!” 

Ward blinked between the scientists, and turned to Stark. “Okay, fix our engines. We can hide you.” Stark pushed past them and jumped down the stairs, as if he knew exactly where the boiler room was (which, all things considered, he probably did). 

Barton tumbled into the boiler room right behind Stark, bumping into him, as the man had frozen in shock and grief. “Oh, baby,” Stark murmured, rushing to the glowing hunk of metal, running his hands over the horribly welded brass plates, “they did a _number_ on you.” 

“Just fix it!” Ward shrieked from next to Barton, and Barton glared sideways at him. Ward was unusually pale and fidgety, facing certain death and not being able to do anything about it. 

Stark pulled out a small blowtorch from his pocket (and who goes around with a fire breathing item in their pocket? Madmen, that’s who) and pried the brass off the hinges. Gasoline spurted out, and Stark reached his hand inside the mess of clicking gears, an intense look of concentration on his face while his jumpsuit got irreparably stained, and pulled out a mess of glowing blue crystals. 

“These fell out,” he explained, wiping them off on his clean sleeve, and stuck them back inside the hole, screwing his face up until an audible _click_ registered and Barton slammed into the ceiling as the airship stopped moving. 

“You could have warned me,” he groaned, rubbing his head. As he stood up, he noticed his bow in the corner of the room. It had snapped in two. “Aww, look at what you did! You broke my only weapon.” 

Stark waved a hand. “I’ll buy you a new one. I’ll _make_ you a new one, in fact. We should be high enough in the atmosphere to not be detected by the Furies.” 

“Furies, as in the Greek myths?” Ward raised an eyebrow. 

Tony Stark snorted. “I know a few Norse gods who would take offense at that. _No_ , live model decoys of Nick Fury, who is pissed at me for hacking into their database. But he didn’t send them at me; Doom did. They’re not advanced enough to track us, unless we left a trail for them — which, we might have, considering the engine has been screaming for help for hours.” 

As if on cue, the bus lurched and spun to the side. 

“Did you do that?” Ward screamed at Stark, who was holding onto the engine for his life. 

“No!” Stark screamed back, and pressed the button to activate his rocket boots. He was the only one in the room managing to obtain equilibrium in the tumult. “The Furies destroyed a wing!” 

“We’re higher than we’ve ever been!” Barton sat on the closed door as the bus balanced out on its side. “If we drop we will die instantly.” 

“We can build a parachute,” Stark said breathlessly. “If we construct a parachute large enough to float the ship, we can survive.” 

“You’d need something strong to make that,” Barton said, calculating. “You’d need polyester, or something, and _we don’t have polyester_!” 

Stark laughed. “Yes, you do. You have the wing.” 

Barton blanched at him, and the door he was sitting on burst into pieces. He fell into the arms of a metal construct, gleaming silver and bronze and reminiscent of a stern man in an eyepatch, with a machine gun for a hand. The automaton (live model decoy) looked uninterested in him, though, and tossed him to the side, into the stairwell, and jumped through the door to face Tony Stark. 

He could hear the crunch of wood as Stark propelled himself through the ceiling with his rocket boots, and the buzzing and clicking as the Fury chased after him. 

A knock resounded on the porthole next to Barton’s head, and he turned, nursing a sore body. Tony Stark hovered outside it, hissing, “Take the cloth off the wing and wait for me starboard! I have to —” He cut off, ducking under ruby red lasers. “ _Do it_!” 

Barton stood, dusting himself off, and climbed up the sideways stairwell like it was the tightrope at the cirque. When he reached the deck, the only other person on it, May, was tangled in the Wheel to prevent her falling off sideways 50,000 feet above sea level. 

He waved at her, hooking an arm and leg around the railing and inching over to the one wing still working — straining, the clear polyester billowing in the harsh wind, to save the lives of everyone on this ship. If he removed the cloth, there was a chance they could attach it to both railings before they hit the sea. Barton turned and saw the broken wing in all its pain — the supporting beam had snapped and it hung limply from the side, a dead weight pulling the airship to its grave. The polyester wing was ripped and utterly useless to saving everyone’s lives, so Barton ignored the wrong way it hung in the sky and reached the working wing. 

“What are you doing?” May yelled at him. “We can’t fix the wing; I tried!” 

“Stark mentioned we could make a parachute and float down!” Barton screamed back at her. 

“Do you know how crazy you sound?” 

Stark flew around the ship at that moment, the Fury automatons firing at his back. Bullet shells pinged off of Barton, and he winced. 

“HEY!” Stark shouted to get his attention, and Barton realized the billionaire didn’t know his name. “I’m going to pull the wing off and you tie it on the other side!” 

He flipped a few times in the air and the boots cut power, and Stark fell like a stone towards the sea. Barton couldn’t hear Stark’s instructions over the trick dive to confuse the machines, but Barton was mostly deaf and read lips. He also got all of Stark’s exaggerated hand motions. 

He didn’t have much time before Stark would be out of tricks and would detach the fiber of the remaining wing, so Barton forewent climbing gingerly to the opposite side for lining up his jump and letting go of the railing. He was in the circus, he could do this, _easy_. 

Barton slammed into the railing next to the broken wing, ankle cracking as it shattered. He swore, hooking an arm into the railing to keep from falling off and twisting around to spot where Stark had went. Stark jumped onto the working wing, rocket boots melting the suctioning where the wing met the support beam, and grabbed the polyester, tossing it over the side. Barton caught it, and looped it around the railing as best he could. 

“Hold on!” Stark screamed at him, but it was lost over the rush of wind as the airship shuddered in the sky and tumbled towards the water. 

Barton wrapped his hand in the cloth, and almost broke his arm as he was yanked along with the five ton brick towards the ground. “It’s not working, Stark!” He looked around for Stark, but Tony was tangled in the middle of the failed polyester parachute and trying to align it properly with all the power in his rocket boots. 

As the airship twisted to the side, Barton’s arm got caught in the cloth and it snapped, and he blacked out from the pain. 

*** 

He woke up feeling rain on his face and smelling ozone in the air, and tried to stand. Immediately, hands pushed him back onto the cot, and he heard Coulson’s voice: “Take it easy, Barton.” 

“What happened?” he mumbled, waggling his fingers that he _distinctly remembered_ part of the shooting pain, except they felt fine now. Numb. “Am I dead?” 

“You’re under heavy painkiller,” Simmons grinned, “and we’re in the Thames harbor.” 

Fitz snorted from beside her, saying, “The fire brigade had a nice time saving us when we got shot with lightning.” 

Barton blinked at him, as he was wearing a curly red wig. “Lightning?” 

“Fried the starboard side,” May confirmed. “However, Stark offered to repair it, to repay the debt he owed us by offering him shelter.” 

“But he almost got _slaughtered_ by the Furies,” Barton squinted at the sun shining in his eyes. “What made him think he owed us…” 

Simmons waved at him. “I think it’s just an excuse to make us the coolest nonflying airship on earth,” she said. “He _was_ eyeing the masts rather tellingly.” 

“So you’re just going to _rest_ ,” Coulson cut in, shooting a pained glare at Barton, “until your dislocated shoulder heals and we’ll stay docked the entire time, if you need a doctor or anything.” 

“You know what?” Barton chuckled. 

His bow was destroyed, it was painfully obvious he couldn’t manage the engine, and he would be down from active duty for weeks, which would drive this crew to bankruptcy because they had a heart larger than their wallets. 

“I quit.” 

“What,” Ward blinked. “I don’t think you can just —” He looked to Coulson for confirmation. 

“I quit,” Barton repeated, louder. “I’m useless to you all in every sense of the word. This is an international hub, you can get so many replacement boiler workers that dream of living a life of crime. Good luck with Stark’s modifications.” 

May was the only one who didn’t look stricken at his announcement. She helped him to his feet while the others gawked, and clapped him on the back, saying, “Good luck in the real world, Barton. Now get off my ship.” 

“Aye aye, captain,” Barton saluted her with his good arm. “I don’t have anything to take with me, because _it’s all broken_. So I’ll be off.” 

“But what are you going to _do_?” Coulson, ever the caretaker, called after him as Barton reached the torn railing of the ship snuggled up to the dock. “You don’t have any money!” 

“Don’t worry,” Barton laughed, and tasted the rain in his sorrow-slick mouth. “Maybe I’ll join the circus again.” 


End file.
